A mistake too big to overlook

A truism, sure, but does it justify the continued city employment of a paramedic who once made a whopper of an error — one that may have cost a man his life — and then repeatedly lied about it?

Seth Peters of Paxton, described by many as a knowledgeable and experienced paramedic, earns $65,000 a year as the city's chief of epidemiology and health protection. Peters is the same paramedic who was fired in 2009 by UMass Memorial after he made a critically ill patient walk down three flights of stairs before the man suffered a fatal heart attack a half hour later in the emergency room.

For perspective, here's a dirty little secret. It's apparently not uncommon for EMTs to sometimes walk patients down the stairs rather than use a stair chair device. The job is a dangerous one, rife with strains and injuries, and people can abuse ambulance calls and treat them as a taxi service. Do EMTs sometimes drop their guards and be less vigilant as a result? Probably.

But the follow-up state report about Peters' judgment and conduct is scathing. As first reported last year by colleague Thomas Caywood, Peters and his fellow EMT not only nixed using a chair stair for a patient in obvious cardiac distress — a clear violation of protocol — but then lied on a “trip record” that they had used it. They also claimed, falsely, that the fire department didn't arrive in time to help them carry the patient, 48-year-old Charles Rondeau, who weighed just 160 pounds.

A state investigation was triggered by devastated family members who noticed the lie about the stair chair in the paramedics' written account. The probe revealed that the fire department had not only arrived at the Winfield Street home before the paramedics, but had briefed them by radio that the patient was “experiencing severe chest pains, difficulty breathing, was diaphoretic and had a cardiac history,” according to the report.

The errors in judgment cost UMass Memorial $1 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by Rondeau's widow.

Peters was hired by the city in August of 2008, just months before he was fired by UMass, and he apparently has no contact with patients. Still, his continued employment by the city once again underscores the disconnect between public and private employment. In the private sector, would a company continue to employ someone who erred so badly and repeatedly lied about it? As usual, the cover-up here exposed the crime. Should we trust this man to analyze health data for the city?

City Councilor Joseph O'Brien, a longtime paramedic, said he knows Peters by reputation only.

“By all accounts, he was a good paramedic,” O'Brien said yesterday. “The reality is, he made a tragic mistake, one that had terrible repercussions. But we all make mistakes. Should his career be over because of that?”

I have the highest regard for paramedics, having watched them more than once transport my mom and an asthmatic friend to the hospital. I'm in awe of their professionalism, expertise and sensitivity. They save lives every day.

But different mistakes carry varied degrees of consequence. If I screw up at my job, I write a correction the next day and shake it off. Health care professionals have more at stake. This week, city officials said the matter has been “addressed and resolved,” but I would challenge them to tell that to the family of Charles Rondeau.

No one is arguing that Seth Peters deserves a jail sentence or life-long punishment. By most accounts, he's a decent guy. But to hold the post of the city's regional hospital coordinator and head of health protection? It's enough to make us a little ... queasy.